Often times in semiconductor wafer fabrication, after completion of various processes a semiconductor wafer has remaining substrate material that must be removed in a backgrinding process. During the backgrinding process, a spindle rotates a grinding wheel, while the substrate is either held stationary or is itself rotated. If there is a substantial amount of substrate to remove, a coarse grinding wheel is used that grinds the substrate to more rapidly remove the substrate material. For more precise control of the amount of substrate to be removed, a fine grinding wheel is used.
Generally after a backgrinding process has taken place, the semiconductor wafer then is polished and cleaned. In some systems, a single spindle is used to perform the coarse grinding, fine grinding and polishing processes sequentially. However, the coarse grinding often takes the greatest amount of time and creates a timing choke point, as the wafers can only be processed as quickly as the coarse grinding process can be performed. Other systems activate a polishing module to polish the wafer in place, but this too can only be carried out as quickly as the backgrinding process can be performed.